we're the only country on earth that has a debt ceiling limit. ultimately as part of a grand bargain we ought to get rid of it and we ought to substitute statutory budget controls and the constitutional credit cart limit, the gdp but in the interim if the republicans wasn't to use leverage they ought to use it on the sequester and continuing resolution. >> right on the heels -- >> we should not allow this to become thought of as a legitimate or normal budget strategy. this is hostage-taking. this is saying walk into a room saying i've got a bomb, give me what i want or i'll blow up this room. this is not something -- this has never happened before and should not be allowed to happen. >> doesn't it mean it will happen now for the first time given the positions that each side has taken and what -- let me ask you, paul krugman, what are the economic consequences of that? >> it's incredibly scary. this is much scarier than the fiscal cliff, much scarier than any of the other things out there because we don't know what it does. what we do know is u.s.